Moscow Cinema Stops Showing 'Death Of Stalin' After Police Raid

A Moscow cinema which screened British comedy "The Death of Stalin" in defiance of an official ban has announced that it will stop showing the film after a raid by Russian police on Frida

Moscow, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jan, 2018 ) :A Moscow cinema which screened British comedy "The Death of Stalin" in defiance of an official ban has announced that it will stop showing the film after a raid by Russian police on Friday.

The culture ministry on Tuesday withdrew permission to screen British director Armando Iannucci's film, which satirises the death of the dictator, after Russian officials labelled it offensive and "extremist".

But Moscow cinema Pioneer, named after the Soviet youth organisation, had decided to go ahead with its screenings of the film. Reports of the cinema's planned defiance led the culture ministry on Thursday to warn movie houses they would bear "legal responsibility" for showing the film.

On Friday, six policemen accompanied by a group of men in civilian clothing went to the cinema following a matinee screening of the film, and at one point held an administrator and other cinema employees behind closed doors.

Asked by AFP why they were there, the policemen repeatedly refused to give an answer. "We just wanted to go to the cinema at lunch," one said. The cinema's employees did not comment on the decision to screen the film despite the ban and said they were not warned prior to the visit from law enforcement officers.

Later on Friday, Pioneer Cinema, which is owned by oligarch Alexander Mamut and is popular among the Russian liberal elite, said it would cease showing the film. "Dear friends, for reasons not up to us, the Pioneer cinema is obliged to cancel screenings of the film 'The Death of Stalin' from January 27," the cinema said on its website.

Anyone who has bought a ticket to a future screening will be reimbursed, it added.